Embracing the Inner McKay
by Neena Varscona
Summary: The Plots of "Continuum" and "Crystal Skull" moved in together, bought matching sets of footie pyjamas, got married and had a baby...and this is it. Fusion with SG-1. Warning: McShep preslash.
1. Chapter 1

* * *

It was never a good sign when the first thing you saw upon waking up was an IV drip leading into your arm. Major John Sheppard groaned and started doing a check of all his body parts. Arms and legs were intact and felt contusion-free. There were no odd pains in his chest or stomach and a quick check further south confirmed that his boys were still there; although he'd have to take them for a test drive later to be sure everything was in working order.

The only things that seemed to be wrong with him was a killer headache and a very fuzzy recollection of how he'd ended up in the infirmary in the first place.

His groan alerted a man who'd been pacing around at the foot of his bed. John didn't recognise him, but he was wearing the science blues of the Atlantis Expedition, so he figured he must be one of the new recruits.

"Oh thank God you're awake! It's about time! Do you have any idea how messed up this is?" the man ranted, his arms gesticulating madly as he continued to pace. "While we were off-world the whole city went nuts on us! Caldwell has taken command—which is marginally better than having Woolsey in charge, I'll grant you that—but it's still weird. And I can't find Teyla anywhere; it's like she's disappeared! Keller looks like she's one band-aid away from a mental collapse, and Carter's come back with Dr. Jackson in tow. But that's not the half of it!

"Since we got back, it's like I've become invisible or something. Everyone's acting like they can't see or hear me, and if it's some kind of practical joke, then all of Atlantis is in on it. Hang on—you _can_ see me, right"

Sheppard stared at the man in awe. He'd never heard anyone talk that fast in his life—it was quite the talent, really. Too bad the guy was clearly insane, because John got the impression he might be a fun guy to hang out with.

"Oh great! You can't see me, either. That's...that's just great," the scientist muttered, and his face crumpled in despair.

John took pity on him. "Relax, I can see you just fine," he said. "Now, you mind telling me who you are?"

The pacing abruptly stopped and the man's blue eyes went wide as he gaped at John. "No, no, no, no, no, no...don't do that, Sheppard. Not even in jest—it's not funny."

John stared back at him blankly, wondering if maybe he _should_ know this guy. After all, he appeared to know John. Maybe the headache and fuzzy memories were signs of head trauma. Maybe he had amnesia.

John did a quick scan of his memory to check for blank spots. He had a brother named David; his parents, Robert and Angela, were now both deceased; he was a special-ops-trained pilot with the USAF, third in command of the Atlantis expedition in the Pegasus Galaxy; the Wraith were the bad guys; and he'd had toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Yep. His memory checked out fine, and nowhere did this nut-job of a scientist make an appearance. So either his amnesia was highly localised, or he'd never actually met the guy before.

As John watched, the other man's face fell, one corner of his expressive mouth drooping lower than the other as he seemed to realise that John wasn't having him on. John almost felt sorry for him, and he felt like he should say something reassuring, but he had no idea what you were supposed to say to a guy who believed he was invisible.

Luckily, Dr. Keller picked that moment to check in on him. Remembering what the Invisible Man had said about Keller, John took a close look at her as she took his vitals. Funny that he'd never before noticed the lines etched around her mouth or the deepening creases in her forehead. Or the way her eyes looked pained and yet dull at the same time. The crazy guy was right—she _did_ look like she was on the verge of cracking. He made a mental note to have a talk with Caldwell about ordering Keller to take a few days off.

"You doing okay, Doc?" he asked, watching her jot down a few notes onto his chart with absent-minded proficiency.

Keller looked up from her task with mild surprise, which quickly resolved into a soft smile. It had been a while since he'd seen her smile, John realised. It had been a long time since anyone on the Atlantis Expedition had had cause to smile, he thought sadly.

"I'm fine, she answered, giving his hand a friendly pat, but the truth was, she looked worn out. John nodded back, willing to let it slide for now.

"Good," he said. "Then can I ask you something?"

"Sure. What's up?" Keller asked good-naturedly and leaned in closer, as if she wouldn't be able to hear him otherwise.

"That guy over there," John said, nodding in the stranger's direction. "Do I know him? Because I'm drawing a blank, here."

Keller looked in the direction he'd indicated and frowned. "You mean Dr. Gellar?" she asked, perplexed, and John noticed that Dr. Gellar—whom he knew in passing—was in fact milling around at the far end of the infirmary in roughly the same direction he'd pointed.

"See what I mean?" said the stranger, waving his hands furiously in front of Keller's face. John had to admit that she did seem oblivious to his presence.

"No, not Gellar," John said patiently to Keller. "The other guy."

Keller looked around again, her large eyes scanning the room and passing over the man more than once without pausing. "What other guy?" she asked, sounding completely sincere.

"The guy standing right in front of you," John answered, starting to get a little annoyed. "Science geek, 'bout my height, stocky build, balding..."

"Hey! I am _so_ not balding!" the man protested.

"...talks a lot," John added. "You sure you don't see him?"

Keller looked at him with that concerned expression of hers that invariably meant he was in for a whole slew of tests.

"Major, there's nobody there," Keller said in a calming, 'don't upset the mentally-unbalanced man' kind of way. "I didn't see any obvious injuries when you were admitted, but...you didn't happen to hit your head on your last mission, did you?"

Sheppard's eyes lit up. "As a matter of fact, I think maybe I did. My memory's a bit fuzzy about what happened on that planet, and I've got one hell of a migraine."

"Hello! I am not a hallucination! And why'd she call you 'Major'?" the hallucination snapped at him.

"You _are_ a hallucination, and she called me 'Major' because that's my rank," John responded.

"Since when?" the man asked.

"Since I was promoted in 2002. And you aren't real, so why am I even talking to you?"

"I am real, _Colonel_, the man said emphatically. "If I wasn't real, would I be able to touch you?" he asked, and proceeded to reach over and grip John's blanket-covered foot in his hand.

John stared up at him in shock and then shifted his gaze to Keller, whose eyes were volleying between John and the patch of empty space next to her where he'd been directing his comments.

"Can hallucinations touch people?" he asked her.

"Of course I can touch you—I'm real! You need to start focusing on what's important here—namely me, and finding a way to make me visible again."

"Shut up—I'm not talking to you," Sheppard said out of the corner of his mouth before turning his attention fully on Keller.

She shifted her eyes again uncertainly and waited until she was sure John was ready to hear her answer. "In some cases of head injury it's possible for the brain to conjure up very realistic visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations."

"Mm. That's true," said the figment of John overactive imagination. "When I was hallucinating about Carter that time I got trapped in a puddle jumper at the bottom of the ocean, the kiss we shared felt very, very real."

"You hallucinated that you kissed Colonel Carter in a puddle jumper?" John asked incredulously, his lips twisting in distaste at the dreamy expression on the other man's face.

Keller smirked a little at John. "Let me get this straight," she said. "Your hallucination is telling you about something that it hallucinated about?"

John smiled crookedly back at her. "What can I say? I'm a very complex kind of guy."

His hallucination snorted. "Please! You're about as complex as a 'connect the dots' puzzle."

"Hey! You're _my_ hallucination, so would you ease up on the insults, buddy?"

"I only insult people when they're behaving like idiots. And would you stop with the 'hallucination' thing already? I'm a real person—I do have a name, you know."

"Oh yeah? And what is it?" John asked argumentatively.

"It's Rodney. Dr. Rodney McKay, PHD. Double PHD, actually."

John smirked in Keller's direction. "Get this," he said. "My hallucination's name is Dr. Rodney McKay!"

Keller's eyes sparkled with amusement. "Next he'll be telling you he's related to Dr. Jeannie McKay," she said with a soft chuckle.

"She's my sister!" Rodney jumped in, right on cue. "She's my little sister."

John snorted out a laugh. "He says she's his little sister," he told Keller. "Looks a bit like her, too, now that I come to think of it—though he's not nearly as pretty to look at. He even has the same temperament as her," he added.

"Okay, Major," said Keller, slipping back into doctor mode, "it's time to tell Rodney that visiting hours are over. I need to take you for an MRI."

"I'm invisible, not deaf," Rodney retorted uselessly.

"You heard the lady, Rodney—time to say goodbye." John squeezed his eyes shut, willing his hallucination to disappear, but when he cracked an eye open a moment later the annoying Dr. McKay was still there. Only now he looked both smug and amused.

"Feel better now? Get that out of your system? _I'm real!_" Rodney practically shouted. "If you don't believe me, just ask Jeannie—she'll know who I am."

"Maybe I will," John threatened.

"Good. Go ahead," Rodney tossed back.

"Don't think I won't," John warned again.

Keller sighed. "He's still there, huh?"

"Yeah," John complained. "And he's making my headache worse. Think you could give me something to make it go away?" he asked as Keller ushered him into a wheelchair.

"That depends," she replied with a sly smile. "Which one do you want me to get rid of, the headache or the hallucination?"

"I think they're one and the same," John retorted drily.

"Now that just hurts," Rodney grumbled and followed along behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

A/N: Many apologies for the extreme delay in updating. Health issues have been dealt with and now that I'm better and have my muse back, things should be back on track!

* * *

John usually enjoyed MRIs. Once you got over the claustrophobia and the disturbingly loud chunking noises, it was actually rather relaxing. In a job where necessity required him to remain constantly alert, ready to spring into action at any moment, it was nice to have an enforced moment of stillness and peace.

But then, normally John didn't have a hyperactive hallucination yammering away at him the whole time, making it impossible to relax. The man was relentless! He'd kept up a constant barrage of nervous chatter, repeatedly insisting that he contact Jeannie to prove he was real. Finally, John had made an empty promise to do just that, hoping to put an end to the incessant talking. No such luck. Not only did Rodney keep yapping, he also got the what-for from Keller, who reminded him for the second or third time that staying still included not talking.

By then his paranoid hallucination had moved on to other concerns, such as how his inability to touch anything other than John might make it impossible for him to eat—which, if you're a _hypoglycaemic_ hallucination, is apparently a big deal. That led to a string of theories on what combination of waves and particles he must be composed of in order for him to be able to touch certain things and not others, and how it was possible for him to be invisible to all but one person. His theories ranged from advanced Ancient personal cloaking devices to dimensional rifts and quantum phase shift technology.

John was no astrophysicist, but it all sounded plausible enough coming from McKay, who was certainly not lacking in confidence. Still, once Rodney had ventured into the realm of the Red Dwarf 'hard light bee' hologram theory, he gave up trying to follow the one-sided conversation. John gradually allowed himself to tune out the barrage of verbiage coming from the other side of the machine. It was all starting to sound like a grown up in a Peanuts cartoon—waa wa wa wa waaah—until the voice began to sound panicky.

"Are you even listening to me?" Rodney asked John's protruding legs. "Oh my God—you can still hear me, can't you?"

John was sorely tempted to answer him. For reasons he couldn't explain, the distress in the other man's voice was hard to take—real or hallucinated. But, of course, he wasn't allowed to move, so he had no choice but to hold his tongue.

"Right. You can't talk," Rodney said, as if reading his thoughts. Duh! He was a hallucination—of course he could read his thoughts! "Okay. How about this? Twitch your big toe if you can still hear me."

Glad to have a means of silently communicating, John twitched his toe. The resulting burst of relief from his companion was almost comic.

"Oh, thank God! Don't shut me out, John; you have no idea how disconcerting it is being non-corporeal. Did you know that I can walk through walls if I concentrate hard enough? Which—yes, very cool—but not exactly comforting. If I believed in ghosts or the afterlife I'd probably be freaking out right about now."

John immediately regretted his decision to reopen communications and violently twitched his toe, hoping to shut the guy up.

"Yes, I know what you're thinking, but trust me, this is not a freak-out. You should have seen me four years ago. Something like this would have had me in a blind panic."

Again, John twitched his toe, this time almost involuntarily—like his toe was giggling in disbelief.

"What? No—this is nothing like blind panic. I don't _do_ blind panic; what I do is more like a highly focused, stress-induced reaction to inherently dangerous situations, which I'll have you know is essential during moments of crisis. Right now I'm actually quite calm—laid back, even. Which is something you would know about me if you would just do like I asked and try to remember. Maybe if I tell you about some of our more eventful missions together it might jog your memory. What do you think?"

At long last, Keller's voice came over the MRI's speaker, giving him the all clear to move again, and he took advantage of his regained freedom of speech even before he'd fully emerged from the bowels of the MRI. "Jesus, Rodney! Do you ever stop talking? If this is what you're like when you're calm, I'd really hate to see you after a few cups of coffee. And I can't help wondering why I couldn't have hallucinated someone more pleasant…say, Angelina Jolie, for instance."

When he was clear of the machine, he could see that Rodney was pouting. "Okay. A) Not a hallucination, remember!" Rodney pointed out, his index fingers aimed squarely at himself. "And; B) Even if I was, I'm far better company than Angelina Jolie."

"Oh? How so, exactly?" John asked, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

"Well for one thing, I've got a brain, and for another, all my parts are real—no collagen in these lips!" Rodney stated proudly.

"Obviously," John couldn't resist.

Rodney's mouth dipped snidely. "Yes, well, I may not have Angelina's perfectly plasticised face and Hollywood hourglass figure, but you stand a much better chance of getting me into the sack than her!"

John's mouth flapped open, completely lost for a comeback. He was aware that his face had grown uncomfortably hot, and if Rodney's reaction was anything to go by, his discomfort must have been painfully obvious.

"I didn't mean…" Rodney sputtered, turning a warm shade of pink. "What I meant was that she's a star. Out of your league. Not that you're, you know, hideous or anything. Which of course you're not. Clearly. What with you being this galaxy's equivalent of Kirk and all. You could have your pick of anyone you wanted on any planet we've been to—which you've proven on more than one occasion. And by 'anyone' I mean girls, of course. I wasn't implying that you're attracted to men. And even if you were, I don't have a problem with that. Honestly. In fact, that would actually be fine. Good, even. It would explain why- why we…uhm… Would you _please_ tell me to shut up, already?" he begged.

"Shut up, already," John replied cagily, eyeing Keller through the room's windows. She was collecting her clipboard, preparing to come in and discuss her findings with him. Even though he knew she couldn't hear Rodney's side of the conversation, he was beginning to think that maybe his continued presence was something he should keep to himself. Right now he really couldn't afford to have a mid-life crisis. Not when there was no one to take his place. Not when they were stranded, cut off from Earth, and in the middle of a losing battle with the Replicators. Not when everyone in this city needed him to hold it all together.

Caldwell may be in charge, and Carter may out-rank him, but John was the one people came to when they needed someone to confide in, a shoulder to cry on, or simply a down-to-earth, no-bullshit conversation about what was really going on at the top.

Keller came in, looking bleary-eyed but smiling. She stood directly in front of him, her hands clasping her clipboard, which had clearly served its purpose and was no longer needed. "Good news, Major; everything looks fine on the scans. How's your headache?"

"Still there, but it's more like a dull thud now. Nothing a couple of Tylenol can't cure," John answered, carefully staying focused on Keller and not the man behind her trying to get his attention.

"And Rodney?" she asked. "Is he still around?"

"Naw," he replied blandly, hoping his poker face was holding up. "Haven't heard from him since I nodded off in that machine of yours."

Keller's face relaxed noticeably—she'd obviously been concerned about it. She gave him a brighter smile and a pat on the arm. "That's good to hear. Still, I'm taking you off duty for the next twenty-seven hours just to be on the safe side. And I don't have to warn you to call me if you have any more symptoms?"

"I think you just did," John answered, finding it increasingly hard to ignore Rodney, who was flailing around behind Keller's back, yelling at him. He winced at the noise, the pain in his head spiking with every outburst. "And don't worry; I'm heading straight to bed. Promise."

"What? No! You can't go to bed now!" Rodney berated him as he made his way through the labyrinthine corridors back to his quarters. "You can't just pretend I'm not here, John. I'm here, and I'm not going away. I'm real! Remember? You were going to contact Jeannie to prove I exist—remember?"

As he reached the nearest transporter and the door closed behind him, John turned on Rodney. "Look—no offense, okay? But you don't exist. You're just a malfunction of my over-exhausted brain…a-a piece of wishful thinking. Nothing more. And I couldn't contact Dr. McKay even if I wanted to—we're cut off from Earth! So, as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, you're not real, and life in the Pegasus Galaxy will just have to go on as usual." John jabbed at the location dot closest to his quarters and the transporter instantly opened onto a different corridor. He headed down the hallway, not at all surprised to hear Rodney's stomping footsteps coming up behind him. What did surprise him was that McKay had yet to say anything.

John barely slowed his stride as he came upon his living quarters. Atlantis obligingly opened the door faster than usual to prevent him slamming into it, and, as if reading his mind, closed the door equally fast behind him. That didn't prevent Rodney from waltzing straight through the door, however.

John sighed and slouched back onto his bed, one arm draping over his eyes for the dual purpose of blocking out the stabbing shards of morning sunlight which were beginning to stream through his window, and to make watching Rodney less tempting. The sooner he got on board with the whole 'McKay doesn't exist' theory, the better.

He waited, expecting Rodney to begin ranting again, perhaps going off on another of his long-winded one-sided conversations, but all he got was a barely voiced 'huh'.

That just wasn't fair. Of all the things he could have done, why had Rodney gone and done something unexpected like that? Now John's curiosity was piqued, and he had no choice but to drop his arm and check out what had the scientist so speechless.

"What?" John had to prompt.

"Oh, nothing," said Rodney absently. "It's just…these were my quarters. I lived here. _Live_ here," he corrected. "Only, when this was my place, it had a bigger bed. I just think it's interesting that you would purposely choose to replace it with a smaller bed. Look at you—your feet stick out at the end; doesn't that drive you nuts? And why don't you have any blankets? I've always wanted to ask you that."

John groaned. Apparently, ignoring Rodney was out of the question. "If you really must know, I prefer not to get too comfortable when I sleep; makes it harder to wake up in a hurry if there's an emergency."

Rodney seemed satisfied enough with the answer, and it looked like he might just let him get some sleep after all, when: "So, I guess you don't do a whole lot of entertaining in here?"

"Rodney," John warned.

"At least, not in the sense of long-term relationships. The odd quickie, maybe; but I can't see anyone else putting up with a bed that size for any length of time," Rodney continued, obliviously.

"Leave it alone," John said, coming off a bit more defensively than he'd intended.

"Fine. I'll just…be over here, then." A wide-eyed McKay backed off, pretending to look at John's posters and paraphernalia as if they were even mildly interesting.

John closed his eyes again and tried valiantly to fall asleep, but he could practically hear Rodney sulking from across the room. It was pointless trying to turn off his brain, John decided. Reluctantly, he allowed his mind to consider the possibility that Rodney was telling the truth. It was a dangerous notion—from what he'd gleaned from the man's lack of personal censorship, it sounded like there was more going on between them, wherever he'd come from. Or at the very least, there was mutual potential—and that was most definitely dangerous territory. Even so, he couldn't dismiss the chance that Rodney was a real person, somehow stranded from his home. Weirder things had happened since he'd stepped through the stargate. He owed it to the man to at least humour the idea.

"Okay," he said at last, breaking through the deafening silence. "If what you say is true, and you're really…real—then why me? Why are you stuck haunting me? Why not Carter? You seem to have a past history with her," he pointed out. He knew he was fishing with that last bit, but he couldn't help it.

Across the room, Rodney perked up and bounded over to him, a smile glinting in his eyes. "Actually, I've been thinking about that," he replied. "It has to have something to do with that creepy woman on that planet we just got back from. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense—at the time, I thought she was just making with the usual threats, but I think maybe she had more power at her disposal than I thought."

John frowned, lost. "Wait a minute. What lady are you talking about?" he asked, lifting himself up onto his elbows to see Rodney better.

"You don't remember any of it," Rodney mumbled, reminding himself. "Okay. Short version? Deserted planet, lots of trees, yadda , yadda , yadda… We come across what we think might be an ancient weapons outpost. Turns out it's not, so much, and that's when Creepy Woman shows up, spewing out the usual crap about meddling where we don't belong, and how we pose a threat to the entire galaxy. And by 'we', I mean 'me'. Next thing I know, you're comatose, and I've gone all Patrick Swayze in a world gone mad."

Damn it! John's entire being was writhing inside, because, damn it!—he believed him.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

John Sheppard arrived in the 'gate room the next morning feeling like he'd spent the night sleeping on a bed of rocks—which was ironic, seeing as he hadn't actually slept at all. Not for lack of trying, though. McKay had camped out on the floor next to John's bed, complaining vociferously and at length about his bad back and pining for his orthopaedic mattress. Every time John had started to nod off, he would hear a snore or a snuffle coming from the scientist that would wake him up—too many years in the field had made him a light sleeper; even the slightest unfamiliar noise had him instantly alert.

So now John approached Jackson and Carter, feeling slightly punchy and wishing he'd packed some Visine. His two teammates looked up from their private conversation to greet him. Part of John envied their easy camaraderie—the two of them had been teamed together for so many years now that they could practically read each others' minds. But then, that kind of closeness usually came at a price, and it was too high a price for John to be willing to pay again. He'd learned his lesson in Afghanistan—personal relationships and military life didn't mix well, in his experience.

But like it or not, John found himself suddenly stuck with his own personal sidekick in the form of one Dr. Rodney McKay. In light of their unusual circumstances, they both felt it was a good idea to stick close together, especially since neither of them could guess what might happen to Rodney if they were separated. The thought of ceasing to exist in John's absence had been more than enough to convince Rodney to risk a trip through the stargate, even though he was unsure what effects passing through a wormhole might have on him in his current 'condition'. So there was no way John could ignore the man, and despite his better judgement, he was really starting to like the guy.

At last, the final member of his team arrived, yanking on her tactical vest as she trotted towards them.

"You've got to be kidding me! Cadman? Cadman is on your team?" Rodney bleated in John's ear.

"You got a problem with Cadman?" John mumbled as he covertly fussed with his comm.

"Of course not," Rodney snapped defensively. "Not really," he amended after a moment. "Okay—so it kind of creeps me out being around her since that time she got stuck in my head. Trust me—you do _not_ want that woman knowing every thought that goes through your mind. She's not above blackmail."

John suppressed a smirk and wrote a mental sticky note to get the whole story on that one later. In the mean time, they had a mission to think about, and a possible new ally awaiting them on the other side of that wormhole.

"Alright, Colonel, you know the drill," said Caldwell from up in the control centre. "Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables if possible, settle for grains if it comes to that. I don't need to remind you that our reserves are getting desperately low."

Carter nodded in agreement and the team lined up to face the burgeoning event horizon. As the force shield dropped and they began walking forward, John felt a warm pressure against the palm of his right hand. He looked down to see Rodney's big mitt attached to it palm to palm. His first instinct was to get his back up and push him away, but since no one else could see McKay, that would have looked mighty peculiar.

And besides, Rodney was looking back at him with an unlikely mix of defiance and neediness that was strangely endearing. Heaven help him, John didn't want to let go, either.

They passed through the wormhole together, and once on the other side, Rodney instantly dropped John's hand and adopted on an air of macho bravado that was co contrived it was almost painful to watch.

"Okay. Well, that was an interesting experience," McKay said, not quite able to keep a squeak out of his voice. John just gave him a small smirk—standard response when he didn't know what the hell someone was talking about. "What—you didn't feel that?" asked Rodney, who apparently knew his standard responses a little too well. "That whole…'Dorothy through the looking glass/this is your life' thing? You didn't feel that?"

"It's 'Alice Through the Looking Glass," John whispered, "and no, I didn't notice anything unusual."

"Fine—'Alice'," Rodney conceded. "Forgive me for not being in touch with my inner drag queen."

"Says the man who needed to hold my hand to go through the stargate," Sheppard responded with a flash of a grin. Game, set and match.

"What was that?" asked Daniel, who had overheard part of the whispered conversation.

"Nothing, Jackson—just thinking out loud." Daniel gave him a quirk of his eyebrow, which was good—it meant he'd chalked John's unusual behaviour up to just another in a long line of bizarre behaviours. Maybe John should be worried that his teammates didn't think twice about him talking to himself, but then, in their line of work, he figured it was only a matter of time before they all snapped. Maybe denial was their only real defense.

John fell in behind the rest of his team, watching their six as they crossed a field of sparse, shrivelled grain in the direction of a tidy cluster of houses.

"Wait a minute," Rodney said, sounding pensive. "I know this place."

That caught John's full attention, and he eyed his new companion questioningly.

"This is the Genii home-world," Rodney explained, a not-so-subtle hint of bitter distaste surfacing from within the heavier bouquet of fear.

"You know these people?" John asked, more loudly than he'd intended, and he wasn't surprised when it was Jackson who answered.

"Only from what some of our trading partners have told us. They're reputed to be tough negotiators, but 'honest and reliable'." The air quotes were clearly audible in his response.

Next to John, Rodney let out a mirthless snort. "Please—the Genii are about as genuine as the Fiji Mermaid. Trust me, John, you do _not_ want to get into bed with these people. I suggest a hasty retreat—say, right about now—before it rains on our parade and they go all Gizmo on us."

John quickly measured Rodney's response, taking in the darting eyes and the nervous way he kept grabbing at his right forearm like he was in pain. Sure, he'd been more verbally panicky when John had been stuck in the MRI, but the body language was unmistakable—Rodney was seriously freaked.

As they drew closer to the tiny village, a young woman spotted them and 'halooed' to them, attracting the attention of an older man bailing hay further out in the field.

"Oh, great," Rodney muttered. "It's too late. Just… just, whatever you do, don't piss them off, and don't mention C4. The Genii have this whole secret underground city, complete with a psycho army and a crap-load of barely contained nuclear warheads."

Sheppard's step faltered slightly at the mention of nuclear warheads. As far as he knew, no one in the Pegasus Galaxy had been able to advance that far without attracting the attention of the Wraith and getting themselves seriously culled. And by the looks of it, these folk had scarcely graduated from the hunting/gathering stage of development.

Falling back to let Jackson do his thing, John gave the pretty young blonde—Sora—a good once-over. As the usual pleasantries were passed, John studied her carefully. For a farm girl, she held herself all wrong. Despite her apparent frailty and signs of illness there was something about her that screamed military. The way she met his eyes with a flinty stare, and the way she squared her shoulders, chin jutting out ever so slightly as if daring him to put her to the test. The man she'd introduced as her father—who was equally sallow-looking—hid it better than she did; but he, too, had a dangerous undercurrent to him. John was absolutely certain that he would have missed the signs if Rodney hadn't given him the heads-up.

John glanced over at the rest of his team. Carter and Jackson were laying the diplomatic jargon on thick, desperate to make a good first impression, but Cadman gave him an uneasy look. She'd noticed something fishy, too, it seemed. And if that wasn't enough to convince him, he also had Rodney hovering so close he could practically feel the nervous tension radiating off him in waves.

Despite the fact that he might be committing career suicide, John felt the need to say something before Carter promised to jump through hoops on the off-chance of procuring fresh veggies. There was no other way for it but to be blunt: "So…just so we're clear; you guys aren't some neurotic, militaristic race with a secret arsenal of nuclear weapons stashed away in a hidden, underground lair, are ya?"

"Major!" Carter snapped, more shocked than angry at the interruption.

Sheppard shrugged—he might have even apologized, if their hosts hadn't noticeably flinched in unison and swapped surreptitious glances.

"What did I tell you?" Rodney crowed.

"So there _is_ a secret underground bunker with nuclear weapons?" John asked with feigned innocence, rubbing the back of his neck in his best 'gee, gosh' way.

The blonde's lips drew into a hard, thin line, her sunken eyes glaring at him with enough hatred to melt iron. She wasn't the only one giving him the hairy eyeball, either—the rest of his team were looking at him as if he'd spontaneously begun channelling Nostradamus.

"A little birdie told me," John said by way of explanation.

The girl's father stepped up to him, all pretence of being a simple farmer dropping away as he scowled at him in contempt. Suddenly he didn't seem the least bit humble or weak, and the pitchfork in his hands was aimed at them like a weapon now, too. "It is true, then, what others have said about your people. You knew of our weapons and our plan to destroy the Wraith as they slumbered, and yet you awakened the beasts before we were ready to attack! Because of you we were not prepared when the Wraith came. Our scientists doubled their efforts to complete our weapons, but it wasn't enough—the Wraith decimated our population before we could deploy even one bomb!"

Carter stepped forward, hands held in front of her in a vain attempt to rescue the situation. The man, Tyrus, was practically humming with anger, veins popping in his forehead as his jaw clenched ever tighter, and John had a nasty feeling that Carter was only going to piss him off more. And hadn't Rodney warned him not to piss them off?

"I promise you, we had no intention of putting your people in danger," Carter said, inching closer to the farmer and slowly reaching for the pitchfork. "And right now, it sounds like you could use all the allies you can get. So I think it's in everyone's best interest to let the past go and focus on the future."

Beside John, Rodney snorted. "You guys have clearly never dealt with the Genii before. They can hold a grudge almost as long as the Replicators can."

As if to prove Rodney's point, Tyrus snarled at Carter and jabbed at her with the pitchfork. "You weren't listening, Lantean—the Genii have no future. The few of us who survived the attack are barely able to work the land for food! Everyday we lose more of our people to a wasting sickness brought on by the Wraith."

As Colonel Carter continued to placate the man, John cut his gaze over to McKay, who'd taken a step back, for some reason. John raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"It's radiation poisoning," Rodney stated, his face slack with fear. "We're standing at ground zero of a Chernobyl-sized meltdown. We've gotta get the hell out of here, John! It may already be too late!"

Oh, what John would give for a simple meet-n-greet to go as planned. He allowed himself a little sigh of regret before yanking the pitchfork out of Tyrus' hands. As expected, the man was furious at the unforeseen move and took a swing at him, but John had the advantage of not being the one rotting away from radiation sickness, and in a heartbeat he had the man pinned to the muddy earth. Luckily, the rest of his team played along with him and quickly had the girl under gun-point. He wasn't at all surprised to see that Sora had a wickedly sharp knife in her grip, ready to use it against them at the first opportunity.

"Okay. Here's how it's gonna go," said Sheppard, his knee digging firmly into the small of Tyrus' back. "We came here to do a little trading. That's all. Now, from the looks of it, you've got crops that won't grow and I'll bet your livestock have seen better days, too. Am I right?" John didn't wait for an answer, knowing he wasn't going to get one anyway. "Your people, the animals, the plants—it's what we call radiation poisoning, and it's coming from those weapons you built, not from the Wraith attack. Now the good news is that we might be able to treat some of your people and make them better. So. The way I see it, you need what we have more than the other way around, and that means you're gonna start treating us with the respect we deserve. Got it?"

This time he waited until he got a grudging nod from Tyrus before he let up on the man's back, allowing him to pull himself to his feet. There was still a wary vibe coming off him, and his daughter had a look on her face like she'd swallowed a live fish, but the fight was over. Carter and Cadman holstered their weapons and took a step back to let them know they no longer posed a threat.

Carter looked at John pointedly before addressing Tyrus. "What Major Sheppard said is true—you and your people will die if you remain here. We can help you relocate, treat your sick: in return, we ask for your friendship and a chance to set up a trade agreement that will benefit all of us."

Tyrus stood tall, his chin held high as if to save face despite the mud caked into his shirt and pants. He nodded proudly. "I will call a town gathering to discuss your offer this evening. If you return tomorrow, you will have your answer then." He wasn't giving in—he was just doing what was best for his people. John really didn't care, so long as they let them leave peacefully, right the hell now.

***

John was really starting to hate the infirmary. Hadn't he just gotten out of this place? And here he was again, draped in nasty green scrubs, while Dr. Needles McJabberson drew more blood from his arm than could possibly be humane. At least this time he wasn't alone. The rest of his team filled up the entire south side of the infirmary, having their arms drained in the name of medicine. Jackson looked particularly green around the gills, and John belatedly remembered that this wasn't his first run-in with radiation sickness. Poor guy.

But at least he didn't have an invisible hypochondriac pacing incessantly around him.

John frowned at Rodney, willing him to chill out and shut the hell up, before he tested the boundaries of Rodney's physical presence by throttling the man to death. Seriously—how did he think John would be able to convince Keller to run tests on him? 'Gee, Jennifer, remember that hallucination I was having earlier? Well, would you mind drawing some imaginary blood from him? He thinks he might have radiation sickness. Thanks.' Yeah, that would go over well.

Keller left to run their blood tests, leaving John alone with his team, and suddenly all eyes turned to him in unison. It was creepy in a 'Village of the Damned' kind of way.

"Well?" asked Carter, arms tightly crossed as she frowned a dime-sized hole into John's forehead. "Care to explain what that was all about?"

"Like I said, a little birdie told me," John answered sheepishly.

"Hah! Like they're gonna buy that?" Rodney glibly remarked.

"Well if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em," John snapped back, instantly regretting his slip-up.

"John…" said Jackson in his most placating voice—and it was never a good sign when Jackson addressed him by his first name. They'd never made the leap to being on a first name basis, and coming from the archaeologist, it always came out sounding like a teacher scolding a wayward pupil. "Is there anything you need to tell us?"

Well, crap. On the one hand he could tell the truth and risk spending the next several months heavily medicated and locked up in the infirmary, and on the other hand he could lie, and risk never getting Rodney back to his full-corporeal self again. Rodney; with his massive blue puppy-dog eyes, practically begging him for his help.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy, but I'm not," John warned, and then launched into his story, fingers crossed.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

It was evident from the looks on his teammates' faces that his story didn't sound as plausible as he'd hoped it would. John finished with a lame, "…and that's about the size of it." Let the chips fall where they may—it was out of his hands now.

Cadman's eyes had gone all squinty, like some crusty old art teacher was forcing her to give an opinion on an abstract painting, and Jackson's mouth was hinged open as if waiting for some intelligent remark to magically pop out of it. But Carter…oh yeah, John could see the wheels turning, processing what he'd told them, and he could kiss her, because that meant she hadn't simply concluded that he was off his rocker.

At last she spoke. "Now Major, you did lose consciousness on our last mission. Don't you think it's more likely related to that? Maybe this Dr. McKay is simply a complex hallucination."

"He's not a hallucination." John argued, overlapping an identical remark from McKay.

"Jinx. You owe me a beer," McKay added, his eyebrows lifting in challenge.

"I do not owe you a beer," John replied, irritably. "Everyone knows it doesn't count if no one else can hear you."

"What? You totally made that rule up! It does so count," Rodney countered.

"Major?" asked Colonel Carter, catching John's wayward attention.

"He jinxed me," John explained, thumb pointing in Rodney's direction, even though he knew they couldn't see him.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, looking slightly perplexed.

"Look," said John, "it doesn't matter. All you need to know is that this is in no way a health-related issue."

Carter gave him an assessing glare. "Okay," she said at last, "so, if I were to ask Keller, she'd tell me she's already ruled out the possibility of brain injury and psychological disorders?" John gave what he hoped was a convincing nod. "And you believe this Dr. McKay's story?"

"Hey, what do I know? He's the astrophysicist—to me it's all just a bunch of long-winded nonsense," John said.

"Don't believe a word of it, Sam," Rodney butted in. "He's a lot smarter than he looks."

"Hey!" John replied, feigning injured pride.

"Go on; tell her how you almost made it into Mensa," Rodney prodded.

"No," John countered. "And I didn't 'almost' make it into Mensa—I made it in. I just chose not to accept the invitation." John realised belatedly that he had done exactly as Rodney had asked, and he answered Rodney's victorious smirk with an evil glare.

"Major?" asked Carter, her lip twitching into an almost-smile.

"It's not important," John answered. "What _is_ important is that we find a way to send Rodney back to where he belongs."

"It would help if the rest of us could at least talk with him directly," Daniel offered.

"Oh? And how would you suggest we do that?" Rodney berated, his arms crossed, frowning in a way that was likely to have sent children screaming to their mothers. "I'm non-corporeal, you nit-wit. It's not like you can slap a mic to my lapel and play me over the intercoms."

"Maybe it's best that you can't hear everything he has to say," John offered, flinching as Rodney's foot came sharply into contact with his shin. As far as he was concerned, Rodney wasn't non-corporeal enough. "Okay—ow!"

"You can feel it when he touches you?" asked Carter, to which John nodded. "Then he obviously has a limited physical presence…we need to get to my lab." And with that, Atlantis' chief of science jumped off her infirmary bed and had nearly made it out into the hall before Keller banged into her, coming from the opposite direction.

"Colonel?" asked Keller, with her cross kindergarten teacher look. "Were you going somewhere?"

"Busted," Carter muttered and dutifully returned to her bed.

"Don't worry, I'll make this quick," Keller promised. "Your tests showed low-level radiation sickness, which should respond well to treatment. You'll need to take these," she added, handing each of them a small brown pill bottle, "and make sure you follow the instructions carefully. Any sign of nausea, or any symptoms out of the ordinary, and I want you to report back to me immediately. Is that understood?"

They each nodded, grateful to be let off the hook so easy, and Keller left them to see to some new patients. They'd gotten lucky this time—if it hadn't been for Rodney, things might have been a lot worse. And apparently, John wasn't the only one to think so.

"Sheppard?" Jackson said, approaching him as they made their way to Carter's lab. "Can you tell Dr. McKay thanks for the heads up? I've done the radiation thing once, and I appreciate not having to go through that again."

John nodded. "He can hear you."

"Oh. Well then," said Jackson, addressing the approximate location of their invisible guest, "thank-you."

The gratitude seemed to fluster the scientist, who turned slightly pink in the face and muttered something to the effect of 'all in a day's work' before charging ahead of the group to take lead. John shook his head, trying to get a handle on the enigma that was Rodney. Just when he thought he had the guy pegged, he'd go and do something unexpected—he never would have guessed that humbleness was a part of McKay's makeup.

***

Sheppard and his team hunkered down in the mess hall for the remainder of the afternoon, discussing the results of Carters tests and what should be done about McKay. It was a tiresome conversation for John, who had to edit and relay Rodney's part of the conversation to the rest of his team. But as frustrating as it was for John, it was clearly driving the scientist round the bend not being able to speak for himself, and by the end, Rodney had resorted to monosyllabic retorts and silent fuming.

Still, it turned out to be a rather productive afternoon. Carter mentioned that Dr. Jackson had undergone a similar experience himself, where a unique form of radiation from a crystal skull had rendered him out of phase. Only his grandfather, who'd also been exposed to the radiation, had been able to see and hear him. Unfortunately, none of her readings were able to confirm Rodney's existence—no telltale residual lepton radiation to indicate phase-shifting had taken place. The only crumb of hope were some faint quantum fluctuations in a scan Carter took of Sheppard's brain, although both Rodney and Carter agreed that the fluctuations were too sporadic to draw any meaningful conclusions. Obviously there was a lot more going on here than their technology could uncover, so they were playing this one on faith, and John was grateful that they were all willing to go out on a limb for him.

One thing they did learn from their meeting was the reason behind Rodney's transformation. Apparently, from what McKay was able to recall from his last mission, it appeared that his current condition was meant to be some kind of punishment for meddling in the affairs of the Pegasus Galaxy. The question in John's mind (which he unfortunately voiced aloud) was just who was being punished—him or McKay. He was fairly certain there would be a bruise on his arm from the punch Rodney had given him over that one.

It was then put to a vote and the team decided to approach Caldwell in the morning with a proposal to visit the planet where McKay's team had discovered the old lady. Not surprisingly, Rodney was the only one who thought bringing Caldwell into the picture was a bad idea, but as Carter pointed out, since this was a military expedition and not a civilian one, as was the case where Rodney was from, there was no way they were going to that planet without Caldwell's permission.

***

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Caldwell, leaning back in his seat after having listened to his primary team's request, "but even if this Dr. McKay is real…"

"Oh, he's real," Sheppard assured him. Rodney was once again being his distracting self, pacing and biting at his thumbnail in an attempt to keep quiet.

Caldwell pursed his lips and then continued. "Even if he's real, we still have no idea where he came from or how he got here. Which means we also have no idea what will happen if you manage to return him to where he came from."

"Sir," said Carter, "I think that's a risk we'll have to take. Keller has already ruled out physical and mental illness to explain Sheppard's situation, so if there's even a remote chance that this old lady can put things right, we have to take it. We're cut off from Earth—we can't afford to lose Major Sheppard in the field, and you know he can't function properly with this Dr. McKay along for the ride."

Caldwell heaved a seriously put upon sigh and took a moment to study the tips of his fingers. "All right. I'll allow you to visit this planet and check out McKay's story, but that's it. This is a straight forward recon mission—you are not to take any further action until you clear it through me, is that understood?"

Carter smiled at him in triumph. "Yes, Sir." She spun on her heels and strode out of Caldwell's office like she was expecting him to change his mind at any moment. The others followed quickly on her heels.

"That went well," Jackson commented, as surprised as the rest of them with how easy it had been to convince Caldwell.

"You heard the man," said Carter, "let's gear up. We leave in fifteen minutes."

***

The planet Sheppard and his team gated to was a smoking cinder of a world. Blackened trees smouldered where they stood, the muddy cinders underfoot still warm to the touch. The air was thick with the sour stench of fire, the thick, hazy smoke stinging their eyes.

"You sure you remembered that 'gate address right, Rodney?" asked Sheppard, coughing as the offensive atmosphere clawed at his throat.

"Yes, I'm sure," Rodney replied snippily. "I'd been pushing to visit the planet for months—ever since I found references to an Ancient outpost in Atlantis' database. I stared at that address every day for nine weeks until Woolsey finally admitted that the rumours of a Wraith stronghold on the planet were just that—rumours. We figured the Wraith abandoned the place to join the fight against the Replicators, and were either killed off or just never bothered to return."

Sheppard stopped dead in his tracks and held Rodney back with a palm to his chest. "Hold on a second…did you say Replicators?"

The rest of his team came to a halt when they heard him, and turned as one to face them.

"Yes, Replicators. You know; Asurans—human-form Replicators hell-bent on the destruction of all things Wraith-related. Including their food source," he added sourly.

Rodney obviously had no idea how huge this news was to them. As far as Sheppard knew, the Replicators' only interest was destroying Atlantis and anyone unfortunate enough to live there. And they'd done a damn good job of it, too. They'd scarcely escaped Lantea with a tenth of their crew and a quarter of the city intact. That they were able to find a habitable planet to land on at the very last minute was a miracle for which John gave thanks every day.

"Just so we're clear…you're saying that, where you're from, the Replicators are at war with the Wraith?" John ignored the prying stares of his teammates, devoting his full attention to Rodney.

"Not anymore," McKay replied off-handedly. "Not since I destroyed them."

"You destroyed them?" Sheppard said sceptically.

"He destroyed the Replicators?" Carter asked, pressing closer. "All of them? How?"

"Is it wrong that I find her ignorance so sexy?" Rodney said with a wistful sigh.

"Yes, it is," John answered. "So answer the question. How'd you kill them?"

"It's a long story, but the gist of it is that I created a friendly Replicator to infiltrate their base of operations, then turned her into a kind of gargantuan super-magnet, magnifying the bonds between Replicator nanites until we'd created a nanite blob so massive and dense that it sank into the planet's core."

John gawped at him for a moment, and then related what Rodney'd said to the rest of the team. Carter, in particular, looked impressed.

"Amazing," she said at last, oblivious to the crowing smirk on McKay's face. "We've always fought the Replicators by weakening or destroying the bonds between their nanites, we never thought of strengthening the bonds."

"Well, whatever happened to the Replicator's where you came from, here all they want is to take us out and go back to their collective navel-gazing," replied Cadman.

"Obviously the Wraith never left this planet to go off to war," Jackson called out from farther down the path where he'd wandered during their discussion. He was kneeling down over the charred remains of a body. As the rest of the team approached, it became clear that the man had been fed on before fire destroyed the forest. A telltale vertical gash and five finger gouges marred the blackened flesh of the bare-chested victim.

"You don't think the Wraith are still here, do you?" Rodney asked Sheppard with wide, fearful eyes.

"Only one way to find out," Sheppard answered, and led the way through the smouldering woods.

"Why did I know you were going to say that," Rodney muttered to himself and reluctantly trudged along behind him towards what little was likely to remain of the Ancient outpost.


End file.
